Living out Faith

Over the weekend, I watched the Pursuit of Happyness on HBO. It was a bittersweet show. Wife left husband and son because she could no longer deal with unpaid bills and rent. Husband scored an unpaid intern program at a brokerage firm. Because of increasing debts and other stuff, father and son find themselves homeless and spent evenings rushing to the homeless shelter to secure a room for a night. There were times that they had to spend nights in a bathroom of the subway station or just ride the subway all night. It was hard to watch and see the dad struggle and provide for the family and the frustrations and hardships that he had to go through. But in the end, he was hired by the company and he became a very successful person. There were thoughts that ran through my head. Why and how can the wife walk out on her husband if she claims that she loves him? What about for richer or for poorer? What happened to that concept? Having written that, I must confessed that I have given advice t...

Last night after class, I shared a cab with 2 ladies, one from India and the other from Pakistan. Got off the cab and went to the train station with the lady from Pakistan and had a nice chat with her. After I got off the train, I felt really hollow inside. A deep hollow feeling that I've not felt for a long time. The hollow feeling is a disguised feeling of shame and disgust with myself. During the chat, my friend told me that she left Pakistan 8 years ago to come to Hong Kong. She had an arranged marriage and her husband was from Hong Kong of Pakistan origin. She left her family and everything that was familiar to her to come to Hong Kong, a country that's totally foreign to her and even the language, she couldn't speak a word of Cantonese then. She went on to say that her husband works in a hotel and they live in a government flat and they pay HKD2500 for rent. The amount may be small but as she spoke, I was torn between feeling sorry for her and feeling pissed for her. ...

Last night I went to pay up for my ticket to States for summer. After paying my ticket, I walked to Tag Huer to pick up my watch. We sent it there to change the battery and for servicing. While waiting for the watch, I walked around to look at the watches on display. I confess that I have a huge penchant for watches from Tag Huer. Don't ask me why, but I just like them. There's a pink watch there that's I've been looking for a long time. And I have a huge, huge penchant for pink as well. As I was looking and it hit me, for the money that I've paid for my ticket to San Diego, I could have bought the watch that I really like. That got me thinking about the true costs of friendship. Sure, I could have gotten the watch and forgo my trip to San Diego and just spend time in Spore. One might ask and wonder, what's the point of going to San Diego since I've been there last summer already. Might as well get the watch as its tangible. Not forgetting with the trip, I...

On Thursday, the air was extreme still and stifling. It was energy zapping. I could basically stand in the corridor of the school and feel my energy being zapped away from me. Before heading home, I was kidding with my colleague on how nice it was be if there'll be a typhoon signal 8 tomorrow. And.....in the evening, true enough, typhoon signal 1 was hoisted. And I was thinking.....hmm....maybe the typhoon would get stronger tomorrow. But ha! No chance. The next day, it remained at number 1 till in the evening after I finished class around 10. It became a signal 3. The next day, I woke up with a signal number 3 still on. Had to go to pick up something for Joanne so we went out. And with the wind bellowing, our umbrella broke and rain came down. Got home safely, after lunch. We thought, maybe later in the evening we can go to the gym or the supermarket. But no chance! The rainstorm became a black rainstorm. From our balcony, I could see the trees swaying from side to side, no one wa...

Some of you may know that there are times that I do crawl into my little dark hole and hibernate for days and then I do with hope emerge brighter and stronger. When I was much younger, those days were more prevalent and the duration of my hibernation were longer too. Ever since I've got Babe and got married, I try to limit my fights with darkness. But why the fight to begin with? I don't really know. It could be stemmed from my childhood, my teenhood, my inability to cope and understand that I have really dark days. And my reluctance to let go of anger. Then those dark days slowly become fewer as I slowly learnt to let go. Got Babe, was able to share some of those dark times with him but it was hard for him to understand and at times it got him even mad at people who caused or initiated those dark days. I try as hard not to share with him as I obviously didn't want him to breed hate. Plus, it was something that I need to deal with myself. As I got trained as a counsellor, I...

Today I received a comment on my blog which I deleted as it was of no relation to the post. I find it strange, for the person to leave a comment with an expectation of me to reply and yet waiting to remain annoymous. Very weird and strange. Anyway, odd and strange person, if you want to ask me a question, please email me your question and don't use my blog as your playground or your space. I've created a special email for you. faithsblogofthoughts@gmail.com I reserve the right to answer and ignore your questions. Obviously, I do not intend to play along with your game if your intend is to insult me.

I've been thinking about love and the concept of it. It's been triggered by a couple of things around me. And love is such a complicated and complex concept. A few months ago on telly, a lady with muscular dystrophy gave birth to a daughter that had the same condition as her and she's also in a wheelchair like her. The lady recounted that the daughter told her that she hated her for bringing her into the world. But the mother claimed that she loves her daughter and she wants to have a normal life. In my humble opinion, that's being selfish. She wanted to experience child birth and knowing that her child can have muscular dystrophy, she went ahead to have a child. Irony of it, the lady's own father had the illness too. Is that love? Contrast it with the movie Juno, she searched for a good family that she can give her child to in hope that the child will have a better future. That's what I call love. Giving up for the better of the child. And recently, I was told ...

This question rung through my head loud and clear last Sunday and yesterday at church. It finally dawned on me that I've become this person that discards God and pushes Him out of my busy life when He's not needed. I'm become this lame and shallow person without even knowing and trying. Not sure, if I deserve a laugh or a huge smack. The reality, it scares and is scaring the shit out of me! Isn't it sad that we push our friends away when things are fine and dandy and call them only when we need them? Don't we hate those kind of people. And irony of it all, that's my relationship with God. When I was doing my masters in Sydney, I did my quiet time fervently and almost every night without fail. I was worried about money, grades and everything. I was afraid that if I didn't walk close enough to God, He'll cast me aside and my life would be in a worse state than it was already. My time in Sydney ended and relationship with God somewhat took a backseat. In HK...

Isn't it ironic that ever since we moved to Hong Kong that I've got to know Babe's family a little better. On Tuesday, we met up with Xiuli, Babe's cousin. Tonight, we had dinner with her too. Gotten to know her a lot better. I guess, the 2 times that I've met her in Hong Kong, it's probably the most that we're ever spoken. It's the same with Babe's aunties and his other cousin, May. The time that they spent with us, I really got to know them a lot better. I guess when we were living in Spore, we were so caught up with our lives and the rat race that we never really made the time and effort to get know each other better. But now that we live in Hong Kong and Singaporeans generally like to visit Hong Kong, so we got to see them and got to know them better. Life is full of ironies......